MPEG transport stream (transport stream, MPEG-TS, MTS or TS) is a standard digital container format for transmission and storage of audio, video, and Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP) data. It is used in broadcast systems such as DVB, and IPTV.
Transport stream specifies a container format encapsulating packetized elementary streams (PES), with error correction and synchronization pattern features for maintaining transmission integrity when the communications channel carrying the stream is degraded.
For practical purposes, the continuous elementary streams carrying audio or video from compressors need to be broken into packets. These packets are identified by headers that contain time stamps for synchronizing. PES packets can be used to create Program Streams or Transport Streams.
In the Packetized Elementary Stream (PES), an endless elementary stream is divided into packets of a convenient size for the application. This size might be a few hundred kilobytes, although this would vary with the application. Each packet is preceded by a PES packet header.
Program-specific information (PSI) is metadata about a program (channel) and part of an MPEG transport stream.
- PAT (Program Association Table)
The program association table lists all programs available in the transport stream.
- PMT (Program Map Table)
Program Map Tables (PMTs) contain information about programs. For each program, there is one PMT.
MP4 vs TS
- MP4 = MPEG 4 container. This adheres to the rules set out in the MPEG standard.
- .TS = Transport stream. This is meant for very specific ways of embedding and handling an mpeg-2 or h.264 stream for transmission ; It’s often used in broadcast cases.
- .m2ts is an MPEG2 transport stream (not h.264.) See above.
Transport streams are very specific beasts and were never designed for editorial use — merely playback. Even though the content and compression can be the same, the container/format is handled differently than mp4.
I’d say MP4 will give you the best flexibility in editorial and consumer tools.
